11/12/1987

DONALDISM/POLITICAL FIGURES: “You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on. I think of Jimmy Carter. After he lost the election to Ronald Reagan, Carter came to see me in my office. He told me he was seeking contributions to the Jimmy Carter Library. I asked how much he had in mind. And he said, ‘Donald, I would be very appreciative if you contributed five million dollars.’ I was dumbfounded. I didn’t even answer him. But that experience also taught me something. Until then, I’d never understood how Jimmy Carter became president. The answer is that as poorly qualified as he was for the job, Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls, to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected president.”

[NOTE: In a later book, 11-13-2007, Trump wrote, “Jimmy Carter … . He is a very nice man, but he wasn’t my kind of president. I was more into the Ronald Reagans of the world. Nevertheless, after President Carter’s term as President was up, he asked to meet me and of course I agreed. I didn’t know what he wanted in that I had never supported him and was actually very vocal on how poorly he handled our captives in Iran. … Nevertheless, we had a wonderful conversation prior to getting to his point, which was, would I consider making a $50 million contribution to the Jimmy Carter Library? Here was a man that I had not supported, had not voted for, and yet he was in my office asking for a $50 million contribution! I said to myself, and I told the story many times, that Jimmy Carter, despite his image to the contrary, had an ability to think big. That’s why he ran for President and others did not.”]